Implications of carbohydrate digestion time in diet therapy

: The review is devoted to the problem of using information about dietary carbohydrate digestion in the practice of diet therapy of different diseases. Excessive consumption of carbohydrates, especially easily assimilable, entails disturbances not only in carbohydrate but also in fat metabolism. This increases the risk of development of many diseases including obesity, atherosclerosis and relevant sequelae, diabetes mellitus, etc. These diseases can be successfully treated by diet which changes structure and amount of diet carbohydrates. However, carbohydrate adsorption rate determined by glycemic index (GI) is underestimated. Now recommendations for diet therapy with application of GI are available only for patients with insulin-dependent diabetes mellitus though this index could be valuable for other diseases. A differential approach to the choice of carbohydrates-containing food with high, moderate or low GI would reduce the load on the insular apparatus and thus improve a clinical course of the disease. GI consideration in diet guides is necessary in practical activity of medical professionals.